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Update: Based on Bill Ramos' comment below and a note on Twitter (thanks!!) I have added some more details which hopefully make the situation clearer.
When setting up data collection using the GUI, configuration failed halfway through setup. At the point of failure I found there were SQL Agent jobs for collections visible, but nothing appearing in Management Studio under Management\Data Collection. The Data Collection icon still had the 'off' down red arrow. (I manually refreshed it for good measure to make sure.)
Beware: this isn't an officially endorsed workaround. It's just how I found I could make it work. I am testing this on a server which isn't in production use.
My Setup
I was configuring the data collector on a SQL 2008 R2 instance (clustered), and pointing to a SQL 2008 (NOT R2) Management Data Warehouse. The MDW is on another server of course– that one isn't clustered (although I don't think it matters). Since the MDW server isn't R2 it doesn't (and can't) have a Utility Control Point installed, but when you set up data collection on an R2 target, it automatically includes some of the collection sets for the UCP. That's fine, they should just stay off when they don't communicate with a UCP.
In the past I have successfully configured Data Collection at least 10 times without seeing this issue, however at that point my Data Collection targets and my Management Data Warehouse were all on SQL Server 2008. This is the first time I have configured data collection on a SQL Server 2008 R2 target using a MDW which is SQL Server 2008. Basically, I am bringing this R2 box up for performance testing and burn-in now, and later on will be doing a separate change to bring the MDW up to SQL Server 2008 R2.
The Point of Failure
Setting up data collection with the GUI failed half way through. Everything was fine walking through the GUI, but when I told it to set up collection it failed halfway through the setup process and could not complete.
The failure report showed the following error [excerpted]:
TITLE: Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Collector —————————— Unable to start collection set Utility Information. .... Caught error#: 14693, Level: 16, State: 1, in Procedure: sp_syscollector_start_collection_set, Line: 108, with Message: A collection set cannot start without a schedule. Specify a schedule for the collection set. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 14684)
Looking at the system configuration, jobs had been created in the SQL agent for data collection, but no system collections were visible under the Data Collector in management studio.
At this point I was not able to uninstall and reinstall– currently Data Collection can be disabled, but it can't be uninstalled.
The Error Message is Helpful!
As far as errors go, it told me exactly what the problem was, which I appreciate. Thank you error handling!
I reran the data collector setup for good measure to see if I got the same result the second time, and I did. I did a quick search on the internetz to see if anyone else had found a solution and didn't see one. I checked Microsoft Connect (https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer) and didn't find anything there either.
I queried the collection sets in msdb with the following query and verified that the 'Utility Information' collection did have null for the schedule_id.
select * from msdb.dbo.syscollector_collection_sets
I went ahead and ran some a little sql trace while reproducing the issue just to take a look at what it was doing. I found that it wasn't trying to set the schedule at all for the collection.
I checked through the stored procedure for data collection and found that there is one which updates the schedule. I ran the following script to update the 'Utility Information' collection so it is on the same schedule as the 'Query Statistics' collection set (collection_set_id=3)
declare @schedule_uid uniqueidentifier select @schedule_uid =schedule_uid from dbo.syscollector_collection_sets where collection_set_id=3 exec dbo.sp_syscollector_update_collection_set @collection_set_id=4 , @[email protected]_uid
I then re-ran setup and it was able to complete successfully. I then stopped the 'Utility Information' collection set and configured it to be 'On Demand' (thereby removing the schedule).
So, at least on the surface, it appears I did no harm since I temporarily enabled a schedule, when I then removed. (I verified the schedule_uid field is once again set to null for collection_set_id=4). But there's really no guarantees, of course. Since this server isn't in production use right now and I'm working with it closely to evaluate it, I have time to see how things go.
Follow Up – Filed a Connect Bug
So it was Friday night and I'm a bit tired, but I figured I should do the right thing and file a Connect bug.
This is connect bug 571046.


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Packed with Tomica toy cars, the clip shows a high-speed car chase. And does that with so much style, fun, and car crashes, you can't help but wonder why Hollywood needs to spend all that money.
This is the work of YouTube user Luxe37. For the past few years, Luxe37 has been creating cool car chases.
Other YouTube users also create Tomica shorts, sure, but what makes Luxe37's clips so cool is how elaborate the sets are and how expertly the films are put together.
That, and they're truly enjoyable.
Here are some more Luxe37 films. They're also terrific.
Luxe37 [YouTube]
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

subset: commoncrawl


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$500 target slapped on Apple as iPad seen dominating $120B tablet market by 2015
In his inaugural note to clients, analyst Kulbinder Garcha concluded that Apple should be able to deliver extensive revenue and earnings growth of 50% and 46%, respectively, over the next two years, given that all indicators suggest the company will easily sustain its competitive advantage through its integrated ecosystem of software, hardware and services.
"[T]hree years after the launch of its first iPhone, we believe few handset vendors come close to the quality of Appleâs hardware, software, and services," he wrote. "We also expect the companyâs services offering to evolve along with its device portfolio."
To that end, the analyst noted that the success of the iPad only reinforces the notion of increased user loyalty, which could translate to more stable market share in Apple's handset business. As it stands, Garcha's proprietary analysis for tablets indicates that the segment could rise to $120 billion market by 2015, and he expects Apple will maintain a share as high as 50% by that time, given its aggressive pricing, time to market advantage and a software edge.
"This means that iPad should become a $34 billion business by [fiscal 2012]," he wrote. "Further, our proprietary bill of materials (BOM) analysis implies that gross margins for this business will expand to 35% by [the end of fiscal 2011] from around the 27% levels seen in fiscal 2010."
Looking ahead, Garcha identified four major paths that Apple could take which would result in incremental sales and per share earnings of $65 billion and $10.10, respectively, in 2015 when compared to 2010. The first of which is a low-end iPhone, which the analyst calls both "necessary and significant."
"We demonstrate that having successfully saturated the above $500 smartphone market with an 81% share and having grown this segment of the market by a factor of 2.8 since 2008, once distribution is built out, Appleâs smartphone share is likely to plateau around volume of 120 million and global share of 12%," he wrote. Based on his proprietary market by price point and BOM analyses, Garcha believes the company could generate $26 billion in incremental sales and $6 billion in operating profit by 2015 versus 2010 — adding $4.47 in incremental per share earnings along the way — through the introduction of a more affordable handset.
More specifically, he said that it is both "necessary and advisable that a low-end iPhone is launched" over the next 12-18 months, adding that any fears of cannibalization of the company's high end devices should be more than offset by the volumes in which the low-end device is likely to sell.
Another untapped growth driver singled out by the analyst would be a expansion of distribution through its retail segment in emerging markets. He notes that currently the company's maintains 236 brick and mortar shops, with only 4 of them existing in emerging markets: China.
"[B]y more aggressively building out an emerging market strategy and based upon current spend per capita on Apple products and income distribution, even after allowing for affordability issues, this could drive an incremental revenue opportunity of $19 billion from our 2010 levels along with $4.3 billion in operating profits and $3.16 in EPS," he wrote.
Meanwhile, penetration within the enterprise exists as a third major path to growth, according to Garcha. He notes that the Apple's share in the corporate world is significantly smaller than its consumer share in every product category where the company is a major player.
"We argue that the iPadâs rapid adoption could prove to be a Trojan horse from which Apple could see more rapid corporate adoption across its product line," the analyst wrote. "Furthermore, our proprietary Credit Suisse IT Survey demonstrates that not only do CIOs rate the iPhone as the strongest of all platforms across metrics such as roadmap, distribution, and sales, but also that it is set for rapid adoption over the next 12 months."
Finally, Garcha said that while Apple has stated it is not interested in the TV market, he sees the company's services platform, operating system, and hardware strengths as potential drivers that could ultimately lead it to pursue the lucrative broadcasting market.
"We have refrained from estimating the revenue or earnings upside from this strategy, but given the run rate (now in other businesses) is in the billion — we think this could prove to be a large growth driver in the future," he wrote.


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|Problems? Is your data what you think it is?
Re^4: How to reverse a (Unicode) stringby moritz (Cardinal)
|on Jan 10, 2008 at 08:33 UTC ( #661571=note: print w/replies, xml )
|Need Help??
I hesitated before writing about the byte level, but S02 explictly mentions it:
You can also ask for the total string length of an array's elements, in bytes, codepoints or graphemes, using these methods .bytes, .codes or .graphs respectively on the array. The same methods apply to strings as well.
And of course you have a byte level if you specify an encoding, or if there is a default one. Just like you can have a language dependent notion of a grapheme if you pick a language.
But I think the spec should be a bit clearer regarding how the character encoding is chosen.
In Section Tutorials


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Army.ca is an unofficial web site.
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Originally posted by Veteran's son:[qb] Do many recruits fail Basic Training? I have no doubt that Basic Training would be very challenging and physically exhausting(I'm speaking as someone who has not been in the CF, however).I wonder what percentage of recruits successfully complete Basic Training? Would the percentage be 90-95%, for example?Again, your information and opinions would be helpful! [/qb]


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Battlecross Unleash 'Never Coming Back' Video
The melodic death/thrash hounds in Michigan's Battlecross have just released the video for 'Never Coming Back' off of their upcoming album 'War of Will.' Rather than going the route of the abandoned warehouse that many an extreme band have used as a backdrop, Battlecross stripped everything down and jam out in nothing but white walls and a floor.
In the clip, the quintent give it all they have, displaying their high-energy enthusiasm that is only a taste of what they deliver live. Luckily, Loudwire was at the Mayhem Fest 2013 kickoff, so you can check out some images of the band punishing the crowd with their extreme melodic brand.
If you recognize the man behind the kit, it should come as no surprise. World-renowned drummer Kevin Talley (ex-Six Feet Under, ex-Chimaira, ex-Dying Fetus, and more) manned the sticks with Battlecross at Metallica's Orion Music and More Festival and will continue to serve as the band's rhythmic backbone as they trek across the United States on the Mayhem Fest tour.
'War of Will' can be streamed in its entirety starting on July 5 until the weekend is over. The album is a shredfest and Battlecross encourage you to shred too! If you pre-order 'War of Will' through Metal Blade, Benchmark, or IndieGoGo you will be entered not once, but twice in a contest to win an ESP LTD MH-350NT guitar! The band have made it easy for you, so all you have to do is head to their Facebook page for details.
Watch the video for 'Never Coming Back' above. 'War of Will' is out July 9 on Metal Blade Records.
Battlecross 2013 North American Dates:
07/01 - Lake Tahoe, Calif. @ Whiskey Dick's w/ Huntress
07/02 - Nampa, Idaho @ Idaho Center Amphitheatre
07/03 - Auburn, Wash. @ White River Amphitheatre
07/05 - Phoenix, Ariz. @ Desert Sky Pavilion
07/06 - Albuquerque, N.M. @ Isleta Amphitheatre
07/07 - Englewood, Colo. @ Fiddler's Green Ampitheatre
07/09 - Grand Rapids, Mich. @ The Intersection w/ Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Job for a Cowboy, Huntress
07/10 - Toronto, Ontario @ Molson Canadian Amphitheatre
07/12 - Burgettstown, Pa. @ First Niagara Pavilion
07/13 - Scranton, Pa. @ Toyota Pavilion
07/14 - Darien Center, N.Y. @ Darien Lake Performing Arts Center
07/16 - Mansfield, Mass. @ Comcast Center
07/17 - Bangor, Maine @ Bangor Waterfront
07/19 - Camden, N.J. @ Susquehanna Bank Center
07/20 - Saratoga Springs, N.Y. @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
07/21 - Hartford, Ct. @ The Comcast Theatre
07/22 - New York, N.Y. @ Saint Vitus w/ Huntress
07/23 - Holmdel, N.J. @ PNC Bank Arts Center
07/24 - Bristow, Va. @ Jiffy Lube Live
07/26 - Noblesville, Ind. @ Klipsch Music Center
07/27 - Tinley Park, Ill. @ First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre
07/28 - Clarkston, Mich. @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
07/29 - Louisville, Ky. @ Expo Five w/ Children of Bodom, Amon Amarth, Emmure, Motionless In White, Born of Osiris, Job for a Cowboy, Huntress
07/30 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Lakewood Amphitheatre
07/31 - Tampa, Fla. @ Live Nation Amphitheatre
08/02 - Austin, Texas @ Austin 360 Amphitheater at Circuit of the Americas
08/03 - The Woodlands, Texas @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
08/04 - Dallas, Texas @ Gexa Energy Pavilion
08/05 - Oklahoma City, Okla. @ The Chameleon Room
w/ Amon Amarth, Children of Bodom, Huntress
08/07 - Sauget, Ill. @ Pop's
08/08 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Marathon Music Works
08/09 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Peabody's
w/ Hatebreed, Shadows Fall, The Acacia Strain
09/26 - Poughkeepsie, N.Y. @ The Chance
09/30 - Madison, Wis. @ Orpheum Theatre
10/02 - Des Moines, Iowa @ Wooly's
10/03 - Ft. Wayne, Ind. @ Piere's
10/04 - Columbus, Ohio @ Newport Music Hall
10/09 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Peabody's Downunder
10/12 - Trois Rivieres, Quebec @ Batisse Industrielle w/ Hatebreed


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The Geek Clique on Doctor Who – Season 2
Well, what a year 2005 was. What a rollercoaster ride. A new series of Doctor Who taken immediately to the nation's bosom, a great new Doctor in Chris Eccleston, a revelation in Billie, some nice nods to the past and some old foes. Then the shock departure of the Ninth Doctor and Tennant and the decent Christmas Invasion.
I still remember the trailer for the second series that showed immediately after the Christmas Day special - and being very excited by it. Was that excitement warranted? Well, that's what we're here to find out.
Like last time, when we looked at Season One of the new Doctor Who series, I'll be asking the Geek Clique (a bunch of (largely) demographically-similar fans, you can probably guess which demographics) for their views and ratings of Tennant's first series.
If you missed it last time I asked them - in an investigation of whether my 33-33-33 good-bad-indifferent rule was about right - which episodes they liked. Just that. No marks out of ten or caveats. I also asked them for their comments on what they thought worked and why.
The Tenth Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Sarah-Jane, K9, Cybermen, the Absorbaloff. Alons-y!
Series 2
For me this is probably the weakest of the series of NuWho, though Series Six is running it very close. I never really warmed to the Tenth Doctor, though I could appreciate Tennant's acting abilities. I found him rather self-satisfied, shouty and saddled with an awful accent. As one of the Geel Clique says, he's a twat. His relationship with Rose brought out the worst in them - they were hard to warm to and I was glad to see the back of the whingy, clingy, often cruel Rose by the end of the series.
I don't rate many of the stories either. It has one out-and-out classic in The Girl In The Fireplace, an episode that's funny, touching, clever, scary and weird by turn and an episode that really built up its emotional pay-off, rather than just having someone cry while Murray Gold wanks away in the background. Oh, it's 'drunk Doctor' scene is possibly the worst in the entire series, but we'll ignore that.
I also voted for School Reunion, an episode that I'd describe, favourably, as 'nice'. It's oh-so-slight and Anthony Head would have Graham Crowden frowning and thinking 'that's a bit much' but it has Sarah-Jane and K9 and some funny lines.
I really liked a lot of elements in The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit but it didn't feel like the sum of its parts. It came across as a bit jumbled, like it had been clumsily rewritten but I thought it genuinely chilling in parts - "Don't turn around" a classic moment - and boasted a strong cast. Best of all, Gabriel Woolf was in it.
NB. I forgot to vote for Girl In the Fireplace so bumped it up by one
And that was it for me. Tooth and Claw was a decent runaround, but that was it. The Idiot's Lantern seemed like a nice idea and looked a treat but was the first in a series of forgettable Gatiss scripts that just don't really come off.
I thought New Earth possibly the worst in the new series run and the Cybermen two-parter an absolute bodge of the brilliant Spare Parts audio play, with perhaps the worst single performance of the new series from Trigger off of Only Fools and Horses.
Fear Her is a complete waste of time and a bizarre fluff of the 'suburban horror' meme and the final two-parter a bemusing car crash of elements, characters, monsters and plot lines. I'm informed that half of the Geek Clique literally shit themselves with sadness when Rose went through the wall, though, so what do I know?
What else? Ah, yes. Love and Monsters. This is an intriguing little creation but it seems like it's wandered in from a different series. It's an episode about Doctor Who fans. Weird. But pretty good, on the whole.
The Geek Clique awarded this series just 35 votes. Assuming the same amount of people vote on each series that places Series 2 as last in the Clique's affections - with a series an average of just 3.5 to Series One's 58.
Anyway, as for my 33-33-33 (good, indifferent, bad) split, here goes:
-School Reunion, Girl in the Fireplace, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
-Tooth and Claw, Love and Monsters
-New Earth, Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, The Idiot's Lantern, Fear Her, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday
That's seven duffers out of 13, which is not a great hit rate and blows my mathematical wibbling out of the water.
Read what the Geek Clique made of the individual episodes, the Doctor-Rose-Mickey dynamic and the series as a whole below. And do let us know what you think about Series 2, both with comments and the poll at the bottom.
New Earth
New Earth continues the nuWho tradition of dreadful opening nights. Like many of RTD's stories it has a grab bag of elements that sound exciting but have narrative reason to be together (nuns - who are cats, zombies, the Return of Cassandra, the Face of Boe again, etcetera). This one sounds like it was hindered by Davies rewriting the story in response to something Moffat said (Davies "invents interesting characters, then melts them") and decided to give the story a happy ending. Instead of creating a scenario where Doctor has to kill the experimental subjects and the Face of Boe actually dies, tying in thematically with Cassandra's death, he grafted on a happy ending, which is bollocks. Cassandra's acceptance of her own mortality is completely out of keeping with everything the audience knows of the character, and the scenes in which the experimental subjects are cured by the application of the Sisters of Plenitude's medicines raising the question of why the Sisters were using the subjects for experimentation, if their diseases were so easily curable.
New Earth was an unforgiveably poor start to the season, squandering the goodwill engendered by the Christmas Invasion: after tCI, I was really excited to see the new Doctor and instead what I get is a whiny, arrogant manchild and his simpering girlfriend parading their dysfunctional codependency in front of a load of cats. And then you get Tooth and Claw...
Tooth and Claw
I'm not sure what the point of 'Tooth and Claw' was. Rose and the Doctor start to become smug and obnoxious with their cliquey jokes. The monks that Bic razors forgot are just bizarre (wouldn't pretending to be y'know normal monks be less conspicuous). And the idea of the telescope as a werewolf trap is just stupid - it's possibly the least useful weapon forever as it only works in one narrow scenario.
School Reunion
School Reunion is a funny one too. because Lis Sladen + K9 are in it it's quite enjoyable - but I feel that's skewing the balance in favour of this story, which is wholly forgettable shorn of its USP.
I quite like the Anthonystewartheadites. I'm not sure they'd be worth much without Anthony Stewart Head being smarmy and evil but their shtick of being obsessive self improvers has the basics for a classic Who baddy. And bat wings are cool. Also Mickey is good in this.
Looking back on all this, there are lots of episodes which have great elements which don't add up to a great episode. School reunion being the best case - I've not idea how a show could be shit with Anthony Head, Sarah Jane (this was the first time she came back and it was brilliant) K9 and scary aliens posing as teachers, but somehow it was.
Other than the bits with Sarah and K-9, 'School Reunion' is just a bit boring. It also cements how nasty the Doctor and Rose are when Mickey realises that he's relegated to the role of the tin dog. I'm also not entirely happy with the attempt to retrofit the type of relationship the Doctor has with Rose onto Sarah. And Rose is obnoxious to poor old Sarah Jane. It's a shame the monsters didn't eat her. Oh, and Anthony Head is in it! Yay! But he overacts terribly. Boo.
The Girl in the Fireplace
The Girl in the Fireplace is a story I enjoy, but which loses something whenever it's rewatched. The creepy ship and the clockwork men turn out to have the most banal rationale behing their actions imaginable, and we're supposed to think that's clever!
I've never quite understood the love for Girl in the Time Traveller's Wife, being more struck by the fact that Noel Clarke was going to get screwed over by bad planning again.
Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel
The Rise of the Cybermen two-parter was weak plot-wise, and suffered from the inclusion of an unnecessary and boring alt-earth runaround, but there were some great set-pieces in it and the art deco look of the cybermen along with with their FX-assisted stomping brought to the fore their mechanical, soulless, and cold-hearted nature. Combine this with the conversion scenes at Battersea Power Station and there was a real sense that humanity was at risk there.
The Idiot's Lantern
I've never understood the antipathy to Idiot's Lantern - a smashing episode with a fun baddie, an entertaining plot and a drunken cameraman.
The Idiot's Lantern would be ok were it not for the nonsense about the gay son calling out his evil fifties reactionary father. Gattiss can't do emotional stuff at all and in this instance it drowned the plot. Oh and the Tenth Doctor was at his shouty-twat worst.
The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
I really liked the Impossible planet, dunno why there's the hate for that one. But I suspect it was mainly the supporting actors who were really damn good.
Love and Monsters
I really like Love and Monsters: it was brave and interesting, and about time to try something different. The biggest weakness, ironically, is the Doctor and Rose: they're absolute bastards: it's impossible to believe that people are so likely to worship the Doctor when he's simply not the Doctor we all grew up worshipping. He's a twat.
Love & Monsters is easily my favourite episode of the new series. It's not doing what Doctor Who should do at all, but it stands as the one place when RTD really let rip and brought the keen vision of Queer as Folk to bear on geek culture. It's dark, misanthropic and near the knuckle, but it's also honest.
Fear Her
Fear Her was a fine little story, completely inconsequential and daft, but well suited to 45 minutes and a welcome change from the universe being under threat again.
So many Nu Who stories have so utterly forgettable and lacking in effort you wonder if they wonder have been better off just going with 8 episodes a year.
Fear Her should have been a nice creepy little story about something horrible living on a quiet suburban street, and I thought that the tenth Doctor was more sympathetic than usual in that one, but the abusive parent stuff felt tacked on, the guff about the Olympics seemed fairly typical of RTD's inability to let stories with contemporary settings speak for themselves, and Huw Edwards is unbearable at the best of times and made an even bigger tit of himself than usual here.
Army of Goasts/Doomsday
The finale was magnificent, second only among New DW in the heartstring-tugging stakes to Eccleston's last story. It was a comic book story brought to life, completely believable and utterly enthralling. And the dramatic tone shift in the final 15 seconds give an impression of a show runner at the very top of his game - amazingly confident, wonderfully subversive and pitch perfect in judging cliffhangers.
The final two parter was great at the time, and the end of was fantastic, and I certainly got a lump in my throat. But the elegance of the end was spoiled by the fact that the relationship was soured for me earlier on in the year.
Bad Wolf Bay is the moment that cemented the show in the affections of the nation, if not ours. It sealed the deal for the gurls and wimmin, who were absolutely crucial to what RTD was trying to do with show. That moment with the wall is and will be the moment that gets replayed on The Greatest TV Moments Ever clip shows from now till doomsday.
Rose and the Doctor
As strange as it is to apply the concept to fictional characters the Tenth Doctor and Rose really brought out the worst in each other. Co-dependent, mutually admiring and callous about all the characters around them except for when called upon to demonstrate their "compassion" for our admiration.
I really didn't like the Ten n' Rose dynamic, which spoiled a lot of stories in S2. I never liked that while I felt there was a co-dependency between Nine and Rose that made it a-OK, there was just something deeply unpleasant about the dynamic between the two of them in Season Two.
It's a shame that I can hardly watch Tennant now. Watching him through the filter of the last few specials means that it's difficult not to shout "emo twat" at the screen whenever he's on and being moody.
[Rose} went from being a sweet, normal person to a clingy cypher. Watching them again, the shift in characterisation from seasons 1 to 2 is actually quite jarring. It spoils what could have been fun episodes and turns bad episodes into something awful. The fact the season has more of the latter than the former any way doesn't exactly help.
Season 2
Aside from the werewolf one, the sarah jane one and the madam de pompadour one this is probably the second weakest series so far.
Season 2, for me, is a lot less coherent than Season 1. I know there's a lot of reasons for that - Rose's change in leaving dates, the replacement of Ecclestone - but, for me, the heart and soul of the issue seems to be the writing. I think RTD was caught out by the success of the s1 (as were we all) and rapidly fell into a trap of just writing for his life. The treadmill of actually getting the thing produced overtook the writing; this would become more and more noticeable throughout the rest of the new series and really underlines the importance of having either a seperate head writer and showrunner/producer or a larger writing staff.
Looking back it's really hard to miss how lazy a lot of the plot and characterisation choices were and the faint air of desperation that hung about it as RTD realised he had a hit on his hand but hadn't really thought about what to do next. After the Tooth and Claw through Girl in the Fireplace run which had some of the best action and best jokes in the new series it was all thrown away by a lot of badly plotted runabouts with cod emotion thrown in. Also I'm struggling to think of a genuine real scare in this series - I liked some of the stuff from the Ood two parter at the time but it was all rather thrown away by the creature in the pit turning out to be a heavy metal cover circa 1982. Still all that said it was phenomenally successful and Tennant has become "The Doctor" to a generation in a way that Eccleston and Smith (both of whom I vastly prefer) haven't so it must have been doing something right. Either that or the majority of Britain is thick and deluded.
There are some phenomenally weak stories in this season, looking at them again. I never watched New Earth, the Cyberman two-parter or Fear Her again they were so awful. But I've very little desire to see any of them again, bar the brilliant Girl in the Fireplace.
Doctor Who has never been better than it was in 2005-2006. And, sadly, I doubt it will be as good for years to come.
Vote for your favourite stories of Doctor Who - season two
Caves and Twins: Aliens of London
Aliens of London
It's seven years since this was made, which make it the difference between An Unearthly Child and Spearhead From Space – or Planet of the Spiders and Castrovalva. Or Survival and the TVM. Or... well, you get the idea.
It doesn't seem that long ago, but Doctor Who has clearly changed enormously since then. As it was on telly I thought I'd watch it and makes some notes.
What's extraordinary is just how much the last two seasons have cast off so many RTD-era tropes – it feels like a radically different series now; much more assured; much more certain about its own identity and tone.
Whether that's a good thing is debatable, but Aliens of London seems extremely uneven. Its tone jumps about quite a lot – broad farce, almost pantomime, on minute and drama the next and sci-fi the next.
Ecclestone suffers the most here. His Doctor is not merely eccentric or weird or even childish. He actually seems simple. It undermines the character and just makes the whole seem bizarre.
Tennant and Smith seemed to nail their Doctor immediately, as did McGann. Only McCoy seemed as out of sort - in this first series as the Doctor - as Eccles does here.
Overall, this is a story that's unrecognisable from the last two or three series of Who – certainly the Moffat/SMith era. There are a lot of things about the latest series that I didn't like, but I'm grateful that the series moved away from how low rent the likes of Aliens of London is.
Eccleston seems to be spend most of this episode behaving as if the Doctor is actually a bit retarded. The collision of the script, the direction and Eccleston's clear discomfort doing 'whacky' acting make for a grisly spectacle.
Mickey = Mickey is just a gibbering moron in this episode - and in the majority of the series. He falls over; he mugs; he squeals. And then we're meant to feel sorry for him when he complains about Rose leaving. It doesn't work because Mickey is less believable than a cartoon character.
Jackie - Jackie is worse drawn and less realistic than a Carry On film character. See above.
Murray Gold cannot do any action music whatsoever. Any scenes that involve running, guns, spaceships or fighting seem to conjure up music that would seem out of place in the pilot of The Sarah-Jane Adventures.
Chav culture - It's incredible how rooted all of this is in a very mid-noughties idiom. It's like Doctor Who set within Little Britain or Gavin & Stacey. It feels incredibly dated and also very cheap; Doctor Wo done on a BBC3 budget.
Farting aliens - Occasionally this is funny; occasionally it's even a little sinister. Mainly it's just annoying.
Stupid - It's remarkable just how stupid the whole thing is. Downing Street has banks of computers that have RED ALERT flashing on them? The army follow The Doctor because he says 'Defence Pattern Delta' to them (which seems to involve running quite slowly down a corridor)? Harriet Jones is actually still banging on about her local hospital even after a UFO has crashed in the Thames.
The cliffhanger - it just seems to go on for ages. On and on and on with three separate scenes convening in almost exactly the same way. There's almost a moment of dramatic tension here with the various reveals, but it drags on for long it doesn't really work.


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CommonMind Consortium Launched as a Public-Private Effort to Generate and Broadly Share Molecular Data on Neuropsychiatric DiseaseApril 09, 2012
April 9, 2012 – Sage Bionetworks, Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM), University of Pennsylvania (Penn), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Limited (TAKEDA) have launched a Public-Private Pre-Competitive Consortium to generate and analyze large-scale genomic data from human subjects with neuropsychiatric disease and to make this data and the associated analytical results broadly available to the public. This collaboration brings together disease area expertise, large scale and well curated brain sample collections, and data management and analysis expertise from the respective institutions.
As many as 450 million people worldwide are believed to be living with a mental or behavioral disorder: schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are two of the top six leading causes of years lived with disability according to the World Health Organization. The burden on the individual as well as on society is significant with estimates for the health care costs for these individuals as high as four percent GNP. This highlights a grave need for new therapies to alleviate this suffering.
Researchers from MSSM including Dr. Pamela Sklar, Dr. Joseph Buxbaum and Dr. Eric Schadt will join with Dr. Raquel Gur and Dr. Chang-Gyu Hahn from Penn to combine their extensive brain bank collections for the generation of whole genome scale RNA and DNA sequence data. Dr. Pamela Sklar, Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at MSSM commented "this is an exciting opportunity for us to use the newest genomic methods to really expand our understanding of the molecular underpinnings of neuropsychiatric disease", while Dr Raquel Gur, Professor of Psychiatry from Penn observed "this will be a great complement to some of the large-scale genetic analyses that have been carried out to date because it will give a more complete mechanistic picture."
Dr. Jonathan Derry, Vice President of Research at Sage Bionetworks noted, "We are truly thrilled to be partnering with some of the best brain researchers to generate an unprecedented scale of molecular data that we will make broadly available as a resource to the community through our data analysis and management platform Synapse." Dr Thomas Lehner, Chief Genomics Research Branch at NIMH added, "The NIMH is particularly excited about this partnership that will leverage resources and expertise in both the public and the private sector to accelerate research into the causes and treatments of major mental illness."
TAKEDA has provided seed funding for the effort that will look to expand in the future. The CommonMind Consortium is committed to generating an open resource for the community and invites others with common goals to contact us firstname.lastname@example.com.
About Sage Bionetworks
Sage Bionetworks is a nonprofit biomedical research organization creating a new paradigm for addressing the complexity of human biological information and the treatment of disease. Sage Bionetworks and its academic and commercial partners employ global coherent molecular and clinical datasets to create validated disease models that improve the speed and efficiency of therapeutic drug development. Sage Bionetworks' vision is to create an open access, integrative bionetwork evolved by contributor scientists working to eliminate human disease:www.sagebase.org.
About The Mount Sinai Medical Center
The Mount Sinai Medical Center encompasses both The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Established in 1968, Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of the leading medical schools in the United States. The Medical School is noted for innovation in education, biomedical research, clinical care delivery, and local and global community service. It has more than 3,400 faculty in 32 departments and 14 research institutes, and ranks among the top 20 medical schools both in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding and by US News and World Report.
The Mount Sinai Hospital, founded in 1852, is a 1,171-bed tertiary- and quaternary-care teaching facility and one of the nation's oldest, largest and most-respected voluntary hospitals. In 2011, US News and World Report ranked The Mount Sinai Hospital 16th on its elite Honor Roll of the nation's top hospitals based on reputation, safety, and other patient-care factors. Of the top 20 hospitals in the United States, Mount Sinai is one of 12 integrated academic medical centers whose medical school ranks among the top 20 in NIH funding and US News and World Report and whose hospital is on the US News and World Report Honor Roll. Nearly 60,000 people were treated at Mount Sinai as inpatients last year, and approximately 560,000 outpatient visits took place.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org/.
Find Mount Sinai on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mountsinainyc
Twitter: @mountsinainyc
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/mountsinainy


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VICTORIA — As the B.C. Liberals filed past reporters for their daily caucus meeting Wednesday, Kevin Krueger paused to say there were a few things he wanted to get off his mind about ex-colleague John van Dongen.
The outspoken Kamloops MLA hadn't generated a really good headline in weeks. The scrum was not long in forming around him and he was off on a lengthy tirade against the ex-B.C. Liberal turned Conservative.
Van Dongen was "this little man with his jealousy and his self-serving behaviour." Also he "suffers from delusions of grandeur." Plus "the guy has a really nasty streak to him, he's very stubborn, very self-aggrandizing."
Krueger recalled how in late October 2010, van Dongen, still a Liberal MLA and serving as the caucus whip, had called to try to recruit him to join a "mutiny" against then-premier Gordon Campbell. Van Dongen purported to be part of a group of MLAs that "wanted to dump Gordon Campbell as leader," the irate MLA told reporters. "He was the only person who was stupid enough to speak to me." Krueger being, by common knowledge, the most loyal of Campbell's supporters in the caucus room.
Far from enlisting in the would-be mutiny, Krueger told van Dongen he should resign as whip. The whip's job is to muster MLAs to secure the government voting majority in the house, thereby helping maintain caucus solidarity. Not a position from which to lead an "insurrection."
All this, Krueger put to reporters by way of challenging the pose of integrity that van Dongen adopted when crossing to the Conservatives back in March.
"Where's the integrity when you are the minister responsible for public safety and you rack up a string of speeding tickets as long as your arm?"
A reference there to the revelation that compelled van Dongen to resign as solicitor-general in the midst of the 2009 election campaign. Krueger also took a shot at his former colleague for employing someone with whom he has "a very personal relationship" — actually it is his fiance — as his constituency assistant.
Then, without warning, Krueger swung round to attack Opposition leader Adrian Dix. Turned out van Dongen was only the warm-up target.
He mocked Dix's claim to have "lost" his ticket when caught riding SkyTrain without one recently. "Just baloney," said Krueger. And if Dix really was taking public transit as often as he claimed, why didn't he just buy a monthly pass?
He brandished a copy of the MLA handbook to underscore the point that Dix, like other members of the legislature, is given a monthly allowance for in-constituency travel that would readily cover the cost of a transit pass. "Then he wouldn't need to worry about whether he'd 'lost' a ticket."
Krueger accused Dix of securing the NDP leadership via "duffel bags full of $10 bills," delivered to party headquarters along with a flood of membership forms on the final day of sign-up in 2011.
Inevitably, he invoked the notorious memo to file, where Dix backdated a document to help cover for his then-boss premier Glen Clark during a casino licensing scandal in the late 1990s.
For Krueger, Dix's conduct in those three instances added up to "a pattern, as far as I'm concerned, of dishonesty." Later he added "a pattern of deceit." Later still, "a pattern of cheating."
Provincial news media take note, he urged.
"Media have an obligation to report the news, not make the news. I'm not saying you always do that. But I see people interviewing each other."
"You shouldn't give any credence to van Dongen or to Adrian Dix." Both, in his eyes, were part of "a conspiracy to try and discredit our premier.
"I'd really like people to start giving Christy Clark a fair shake and stop paving the way for Adrian Dix's preposterous attempt to become premier."
Dix, for his part, brushed aside the Krueger accusations, not bothering to respond point by point. Though I gather a monthly travel pass wouldn't work for him, because sometimes he travels at public expense, sometimes for the party, and sometimes on personal business.
Since assuming the NDP leadership a year ago, Dix has pledged himself to avoid personal attacks. But when he was away from the house one day this week, NDP MLAs pretty much accused Premier Clark and cabinet minister Rich Coleman of corruption and interference in the proposed privatization of government liquor distribution.
Over to Premier Clark.
Last month, when Liberal MLA Harry Bloy accused Dix of being a liar, a cheat and a thief, she said those comments were "inappropriate" and "absolutely wrong."
What would she say about Krueger?
Not much, it turned out. "I haven't heard what he said," she told reporters in a scrum in her office. Based on media reports, she conceded it was "not the height of political correctness." But that was just Kevin.
The premier said she'd not have put things the way he did. At the same time, she shares the fears of many people about an NDP victory and the prospect that "economic growth would come to a dead stop."
One thing that hasn't come to a dead stop is the politics of personal attack. Expect more of it, maybe much more, between now and the election.


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Here's yet another story of lost military medals being found and then returned to their rightful owner. In this case, the medals were won during World War II by a soldier named Hyman Markel, who was killed toward the end of the war while his wife was seven months' pregnant. So that child, Hyla Merin, never knew her father, and her mother rarely talked about him because the memories were too painful for her.
Fast forward to last October, when the manager of a California apartment complex found a box containing letters and a Purple Heart in an old storage locker. He got in touch with a group that operates as a lost-and-found service for military medals. That group soon figured out that the Purple Heart had belonged to Markel, the WWII soldier. His widow -- the one who'd been pregnant at the time of his death -- had lived in the California apartment building in the 1960s but had apparently left the box behind.
The widow is now deceased, but her daughter -- Hyla Merin, the one who never got to know her father -- is now the proud owner of his Purple Heart, along with several other medals awarded to her father. That's her on the right in the picture at the top of this entry. You can read more details here.
At least two local news stations in California produced segments on this story. You can see them here:
(My thanks to Roger Faso for pointing me toward this story.)


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About Us
The Steel Structures Technology Center is focused on providing consulting services, technical resources and training related to the design, fabrication, erection, inspection and quality of steel-framed structures. Founded in 1990, SSTC has provided training and support to thousands of engineers, fabricators, erectors, inspectors, building officials and others involved in steel buildings, steel bridges and other forms of steel construction.
Our Publications
To improve efficiency and quality in the steel construction industry, SSTC publishes the Structural Bolting Handbook, the Structural Welding Quality Handbook, and the Shop Inspection Handbook for Structural Steel Buildings. We also provide the Structural Steel Inspector's Workbook, written by Bob Shaw of the SSTC and published jointly with the International Code Council.
Our Online On-Demand Seminars
After providing live seminars to the steel construction industry since our founding in 1990, SSTC offers the industry online, on-demand, recorded seminars. Internet speeds and training software technology now allow for this method of providing the same level of information to you, without the need for you to travel, take off work, miss those inspections or miss those meetings. Also, because of such technology, most organizations (AWS and ICC, for example) now accept such on-line recorded seminars for continuing education purposes, when used with appropriate monitoring and quizzes.
- AISC Requirements for Quality Control and Quality Assurance (4 hours)
- Structural Bolting Inspection (8 hours)
- Structural Welding Inspection (15 hours)
- Plan Reading for Steel Construction (4 hours)
- Special Inspection of Steel Construction under the International Building Code (3 hours)
- Inspection of Steel Fabrication (3 hours)
- Inspection of Erected Steelwork (3 hours)
- Inspection of Seismic Steel Connections (8 hours)
- Structural Welding: Design and Specification (8 hours)
Our Self-Study Courses
SSTC offers a seven-section self-study course on high-strength bolting, including the topics of
- bolted joints,
- bolting materials and their use
- turn-of-nut installation
- twist-off type tension control bolt installation
- direct tension indicator installation
- calibrated wrench installation
- inspection
Each section contains detailed written text explaining the subject matter, followed by a quiz to be completed and submitted to SSTC for grading. Upon completion, the participant should be able to properly apply the construction and inspection provisions of the AISC and RCSC Specifications regarding bolted connections, whether as an installer, supervisor, or inspector. Participants who complete the exams with a sufficient score can receive continuing education or professional development credit from most organizations.
Our Inspector Examination Services
SSTC offers a unique service to fabricators, erectors, testing and inspection agencies, building departments, and others who need to establish or document the knowledge of their inspectors. SSTC provides to employers of inspectors a Welding Inspector Qualification Examination that meets the requirements of AWS B5.1:2003, Standard for the Qualification of Welding Inspectors, the same technical basis as AWS QC1 for certifying welding inspectors through examination by AWS.
Our Consulting Services
SSTC frequently provides consulting services to owners, engineers, fabricators, erectors and testing agencies to assist in the understanding and/or resolution of steel construction issues. Examples of recent work includes implementation of the AISC and AWS requirements for seismic construction, bolting installation and quality issues, welding design and quality issues, and the development and review of WPSs (welding procedure specifications). SSTC provides these consulting services through Robert E. Shaw, Jr., PE (Michigan). Mr. Shaw, with 41 years of experience in the steel construction industry, is active in standards development, serving on several standards-writing committees including the American Institute of Steel Construction, American Welding Society, Research Council on Structural Connections, and ASTM International. He is also involved in international welding and standards activities, chairing Commission XV Design, Analysis and Fabrication of Welded Structures of the International institute of Welding, and chairing the IIW's Select Committee on Quality Management.


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LAFAYETTE — For San Francisco Giants fans whipped into renewed fervor by the team's recent clinching of the National League West title, the next best thing to playoff tickets could be a seat at the Lafayette Library on Sept. 30.
There, writer Matt Johanson will wax eloquent as an insider to the team's greatest stories, collected in his book, "Game of My Life: San Francisco Giants."
The Castro Valley High School history and journalism teacher has been following the rocket ride of professional baseball since his card-trading boyhood.
"I latched onto the Giants when I was a kid," he recalls. "Collecting cards, listening to the radio, going to the games … that was what we did."
After drifting away from baseball long enough to write for the Union Democrat newspaper in Sonora and find refreshment for his spirit while hiking and climbing in Yosemite, Johanson returned to the Bay Area.
"I fell in love with the Giants again in '97 when they had their worst-to-first-year," he says.
With the sweet timing major league managers hope every batter will develop, Johanson's swing (back to his home team), stance (a teaching position at CVHS) and delivery (in articles about sports and the outdoors) came together in 2006.
"The publisher approached me and wanted a book turned around in six months," he remembers. "I was apprehensive because it sounded like a lot to do. But a book about my favorite game and my favorite team? It was too good to pass by."
The first edition, published by now-defunct Sports Publishing, told legendary and less-well-known stories from Giants' history. A 2011 update, with chapters added to ride the wave of the 2010 World Series win, allowed Johanson to "bench" next to his heroes.
"It was pretty much just me, creating relationships with players. I started with the guys I wanted to get. The big stars, it's tough to get them to spend time with writers they don't know. Sometimes, the less famous players gave the best interviews."
The tenacity that drove him to the clubhouse more than a dozen times and the thrill of putting his own stamp on team highlights are points he emphasizes while teaching students and leading the staff of the Castro Valley High paper, The Olympian.
During the course of his 15 years at CVHS, the tools of the trade have changed, from slides and transparencies to PowerPoint and LCD projectors, and from books and face-to-face interactions to Google and social media.
"It's hard to get a kid to open a real book and meet real people," he laments. "They're totally plugged into social media, probably more than they should be. The digital revolution is a double-edged sword."
STAR testing is a necessary hardship, he proclaims.
"It's tough, but it's a responsibility the schools have to fulfill," he explains, sounding like a coach promoting push ups to reluctant recruits at spring training. "The best way to do that is to motivate students. There are ways to teach history and I try to find a way to be effective that's also fun: games and competitions."
With journalism students, he's realistic.
"It's a rough road. I don't encourage them to go into the field. If they want to go into journalism, they can't try that halfway and expect to succeed."
But he does believe in drilling home skills they will use in any profession — especially good writing, ethical practices and teamwork.
Using case studies, like when to name students involved in disciplinary measures or whether to publish provocative photos from school dances, Johanson gives them ground rules for publication.
"Even the kids who have been in sports aren't used to team work in an academic setting," he says. "It's a class for learning by doing: if you miss a deadline, it impacts everyone."
With a new book "Yosemite Epics," a collection of stories told to Johanson by a "Who's Who?" of adventurers and illustrated by Christopher Hampson, the three-time author is thinking ahead.
Next summer, when the boys of baseball are pitching themselves through another season of dramatic moments, Johanson will be writing of his marvelous feats and amazing expeditions in a Yosemite guide book.
Author Talk,
'Game of My Life'
WHEN: Sunday, Sept. 30, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
WHERE: Lafayette Library and Learning Center, Community Hall, First Street and Golden Gate Way
COST: Adults $5, Youth $2
INFO/RESERVATIONS: 925-283-6513, etx. 101 or email to email@example.com hen


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dpca, noted!
As an example of the crammed 4x4 picture being non typical;
Here is a picture of a good kiting day at the tip of Cape Hatteras-
No cars.
Oh wait, here's a few!
Yup, its pretty crowded!
Here is another day looking back north towards the Cape.
Plenty of room for kiting, fishing, surfing, and it doesn't seem that anyone is looking to run me down with their tonka truck as I take the picture.
Just pointing out that every place may get swamped on a holiday weekend or a peak Saturday...but most of the time there is plenty of room for everybody. Okay, I'm done with this thread now. This topic will likely only deteriorate from here but it was nice to hear multiple sides to an interesting issue. I love Hatteras and hope it works out best for the recreational users down there.


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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Several of the world's top professional poker players, including this year's World Series of Poker champion, will be in Jacksonville this week competing for a half-million-dollar prize at a World Poker Tour tournament.
BestBet Jacksonville, Florida's top poker room, is hosting the tournament from Friday to Tuesday. It will be livestreamed on www.WorldPokerTour.com and is open to the public.
Greg Merson, who just last week won $8.5 million and became the only player in the history of the WSOP to win both the Player of the Year award and the Main Event at the same series, will join an impressive list of poker celebrities and legends vying for the guaranteed $500,000 prize. Contenders include Phil Hellmuth, fresh off his second consecutive runner-up finish in the WSOP Player of the Year race; Daniel Negreanu, WPT Champions Club member; Matt Glantz, who has more than $4 million in winnings; as well as up-and-comers Brian Hastings and Jason Koon, both WPT Season XI "Ones to Watch."
"The caliber of players coming to our poker room this week is truly remarkable," said Deborah Giardina, BestBet Jacksonville's executive director of poker operations. "It will be an incredible opportunity to watch international pros at the very top of their games competing live."
The WPT, on its official blog, noted the impressive field slated for the tournament, called the Fall Poker Scramble.
"If you needed any further proof that poker is absolutely exploding in the state of Florida, look no further than the list of poker pros expected to turn out for WPT Jacksonville BestBet Fall Poker Scramble when it kicks off on Nov. 9," the WPT said. "Suffice to say, their accomplishments are impressive, and they all have one goal in mind next weekend, to be the next name engraved on the WPT Champions Cup."
After opening in March this year, BestBet Jacksonville has become one of the tour's more popular venues. The state-of-the-art poker room features 70 tables, with poker at all limits and simulcast wagering on greyhounds and thoroughbreds.
BestBet Jacksonville sponsored Merson in his dramatic World Series win last week, broadcasted live on ESPN. The 24-year-old outlasted a huge field to win $8.5 million and the coveted World Series Main Event bracelet.
For more information on BestBet Jacksonville and the Fall Poker Scramble, visit www.bestbetjax.com.


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I was hanging with my kid the other day and she sprung this on me:
KID: Dad, does outer space end?
ME: Yeah, it does.
KID: What's on the other side?
ME: Well, that's a question that a lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to ...
ME: Uh, no.
ME: No. The other side of the universe doesn't include a GameStop.
KID: But it could.
ME: No.
KID: For real, it could.
ME: No.
KID: That's for real.
ME: Why don't you just watch some TV or something.
Your letters:
Dan V.:
What female sport do you think the most people beat off to? After having lived in a country that regularly shows volleyball on TV, I am going to have to go with that. Tennis is perhaps a close second. I can't even think of a third.
I think tennis is #1 because women's tennis is arguably the most popular women's sport to watch, and because SEXY SKIRTS. My puberty owes a great deal to lingering shots of Steffi Graf's backside. Even though beach volleyball shows a lot more skin, it's not as if millions of people watch it on a regular basis. It's one of those sports that pops up during the Olympics every four years and you watch it because you're like, "Oooh hey, hot ladies!" I think NBC gives you ten minutes of coverage every night during the Olympics just you can get your fapping out of the way. Here is how I think the sports rank:
1. Tennis.
2. Figure skating. The line separating Sasha Cohen and Sasha Grey is remarkably thin. Figure skating attracts both creeps who like staring at underage girls and gentlemen who prefer their skaters to be fully mature women. Those are the classy skating fappers.
3. Ice dancing. It's like figure skating, only the women are more fully figured, and they wear sexier outfits. Observe!
4. Volleyball/Beach volleyball
5. Gymnastics. Gross. I don't approve, but I have to accept the reality that there are repulsive men out there with mustaches who got a rager watching Kerri Strug do that vault. For shame, people! For shame.
6. Diving. Very tight butts. Way better for your needs than watching swimming.
7. Soccer. The shin pads do it for me. Lingerie shops should sell red lace shin pads.
8. Synchronized swimming
9. Luge, I guess?
10 (tie). Softball/Golf
978 (tie). Women's basketball/Women's marathon. I can't imagine anyone getting off on watching 80-lb. women struggling to finish a full marathon. You must like gratifying yourself to old pictures of internment camps being liberated.
This Beau Hossler kid is 17 years old and in competition to win the US Open. Do you think he has ever gotten a blow job? I think due to his success at a young age he has, my friend says he is so sheltered and focused on golf he hasn't. What do you think?
I think he has. Remember, Beau is
from going to Texas. Anyone in Texas who displays any modicum of athletic ability at the high school level is summarily rewarded with his own crew of Pep Girls, a $70 million training facility, and a surfeit of decent fellatio. I bet he's gotten his, and I bet it was every bit as awkward as you picture it being. "Oooh... ohhhh... that feels, like, really good."
I recently discovered that I could program the keyless entry to my car to unlock all 4 doors with 1 push of the keyless entry button rather than having to go through the chore of hitting the remote twice, once for driver door only and then again for the remaining doors.
My original instinct told me this was a no brainer and I quickly opted for the 1 press option for all 4 doors... Less work and might save me from a child abuse stint in the clinker from strangling my kid for ripping off a door handle because he can't wait for me to hit the goddamn button a 2nd time.
But then I thought that there is a REASON they make it... so if a murdering rapist is chasing you, you can unlock only the driver door on the fly and you can safely hop in without worrying that the attacker will simultaneously hop in the rear door and slit your throat. I hung my head in shame and quickly reverted back to the 2 tap mode. Which would you go with?
Go bold and opt for the single tap to open all four doors. Remember, if a murdering rapist is going to sneak into your car and murder rape you, they're going to do it in the dead of night, when you're not around. Then you'll get into your car before dawn one morning, pull out onto the highway and then see their deranged face pop up in the rearview right before they strangle you to death and have their way with your warm corpse. That's how it's done. So don't worry!
Sometimes, I'll go out to my car in the morning and realize that I forgot to lock the doors the night before. So then I check the backseat thoroughly to make sure there are NO rapists hiding back there. And even after I've checked, there's still a lingering trace of doubt.
I have a minivan and this minivan is equipped with electronic sliding doors, which are awesome except for the fact that my children ALSO know how to work the electronic sliding doors. One time, I was buckling my kid into his car seat when my other kid pushed the button to close the door on me and crush me to death. Now tell that isn't grounds for prosecution. I COULD HAVE FUCKING DIED. And oh, how they laughed. Thought it was the funniest goddamn thing in the world. My entire adult life has spent yelling THIS IS NOT A TOY! over and over again.
What do you think the Terminator would have done if he was successful in his mission to kill Sarah Connor? Kyle Reese made it clear there's no going back. Was it programmed to just shut down if he completed his mission? Would he go out killing other important humans of the future? What?
If the Terminator had been successful in killing Sarah Connor, then he would have also successfully erased himself from history. If Sarah Connor is killed and the resistance is negated, there's no need for Skynet to produce that specific model of Terminator to complete that particular mission. Now, to be certain, Skynet would still be cranking out Terminators left and right, to enslave any other humans and because, in general, they look badass. But that one model would be stricken from history. Or its history would be altered in such a drastic way that its original lifespan would be rendered invisible.
I was in the bookstore with kid the other day and whenever my kid is at the bookstore I desperately try and find a grownup book for me to thumb through while they're getting injured at the Thomas the Train set. Anyway, the one I picked up was Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which attempts to explain the origins of the universe. And in the introduction, Bryson explains that before the Big Bang, space and time itself didn't even exist. To say that there was a void before then is inaccurate because even a void is thing, an expanse that happens to be empty. But before the Big Bang, there was nothing to be emptied: the very idea of SOMETHING, of tangible existence, didn't exist. And trying to picture that makes my skull explode.
I'm just gonna assume that before the universe was here, there was Computer Game World.
So my future wife somehow viewed a comment I posted on YouTube a few weeks ago. It read "I want to put my sour semen on those tits." Whose at fault here? I'm playing the angry card here because she promised not to spy on my mail-facebook etc. but damn...
Well, YouTube isn't your email or Facebook account. That's a public site where you made it clear to the world (even if you used an anonymous handle) that you'd like to put your sour semen on those tits. So you, alas, don't have the upper hand. She doesn't want you openly talking about how much you'd like to bone other women in public, and I have to say that's not an unreasonable request. You have to make those concessions when you get married. You can't just hop on Twitter and be like, "God, Kate Upton, I wanna fuck you till you fart." Other people read that. You gotta be careful. Now, let's get back to talking about me daydreaming about tennis players. I'M A GENTLEMAN.
A billionaire will pay you $50,000 every year for life. The catch is you will have rancid breath for the rest of your life. No amount of mouthwash, toothpaste, mints or dental procedures will lessen the stench. Is it worth it?
Yes. You now have a legitimate excuse to never go to family reunions and business functions. I should poison my own breath for nothing, and sometimes I do!
So my fianceé, who I live with, has started "juicing" on the recommendation of one of her close friends. Not to be confused with baseball juicing, this form of juicing consists of cramming various produce items into a juicer (overpriced blender), which then produces a liquid that tastes like carrot juice infused with GASOLINE AND DOG PISS OMG THIS SHIT TASTES AWFUL. The other day I open my fridge to find this horrific scene:
What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Not even a shelf to my name. Is there any way I regain control over my fridge?
One easy way of solving the problem is to just wait. Juice diets have a dubious track record, and it's nearly impossible for people to stay on them for any decent length of time. At some point, your fiancee will get tired of drinking beet semen, or she'll get tired of the tedious process of having to make it. We all go on runs of food, and juices are no different. I remember once I was really big into yogurt and granola. I was eating a bigass bowl of Dannon with granola and honey in it and I was like, "This is delicious! I could eat this every day!" WRONG. I stocked up on that shit and fell out of love with it almost instantly. Then I was left with a big tub of runny yogurt in my fridge. What to do then? Shove it up your butt, that's what. So wait the girl out and shit should come back to normal.
If that doesn't turn out to be the case, I think it's fair to bring up your grievances in a polite but firm way. Grabbing her ear and yelling at her "LOOK AT ALL THIS FUCKING KALE, WOMAN" is unlikely to achieve the desired result. At the very least, ask her to buy bagged lettuce. Loose lettuce takes up more room than a defensive lineman, and washing it makes me want to kill myself. Fucking hate loose lettuce. No salad is worth it.
My friend thought this meant "Buddhism". I was pretty sure she was wrong. When I saw the frame around the plate, I was even more sure.
I wonder if the DMV charges extra for the heart character.
How many people would you estimate have barfed while listening to/singing along to "Margaritaville?" You know, roughly.
The average person vomits 1 to 3 times per year. I assume that's vomiting sessions, and not actual heaves, otherwise the number would be far larger. Let's assume most redneck alkies reside at the thrice yearly rate (which, I think we can all agree, is probably a gross underestimation). The song itself is 35 years old, which means the average middle-aged American has barfed 105 times since its release. Now, urban legend has it that "Margaritaville" is played somewhere around the country once every eight minutes, or 7.5 times per hour. That's 2,299,500 total plays throughout its history, which again seems like an underestimation. Divide that into 36,750,000,000 American barfs over that timespan and you've got 1 in 15,981 shot that your vomiting session took place while that song was being played (NOTE: Methodology not guaranteed!). Divide that into the total US population and you've got 21,901 people who have barfed to that song over its history. MY MATH IS IRONCLAD.
Would you rather have a constant fully erect boner the rest of your life, or constantly be flaccid and incapable of getting any kind of erection (even with drugs)? I think most would immediately, without thinking, choose the boner. But the more I think about that boner the more I start thinking about all the problems that could come with it. I'm still on the fence.
The problem with choosing the boner is that long-lasting erections become extremely painful, so you're talking about spending the rest of your life in agonizing dick pain. You'd HAVE to choose the limp noodle to avoid that. There's just no way around it. Furthermore, if you never got an erection, you wouldn't feel as compelled to satisfy your penis constantly, the way most American men feel these days. You'd have to deal with your wounded pride, which is no small matter, but I have to think that beats the pain and the inevitable embarrassment of having everyone see your springboard every time you go out in public.
If every second of urinating felt like an orgasm, how much water would you drink?
A lot. But even better, think of pissing when you're drunk! You down a whole six pack of Budweiser, and then you have a series of three-minute orgasms to look forward to. What a great moment. We'd also have to build rest stops every half mile along our nation's highways. Office productivity would plummet even further down than its current level. The world would probably go to shit. The fact that you have to work to achieve orgasm, even just a little, is enough of a deterrent to keep the world fully operational. If it were as easy as pissing, we'd all be doomed.
Also, consider the flipside: What if you had to beat off in order to urinate? You know how hellish that would make life? Any time you wanted to pee, you had to go stand at a urinal and tug on yourself for two minutes before anything came out? And you'd have to ration your liquid intake vigilantly, so that you could avoid chafing. What a nightmare. Be glad you get to urinate the traditional way.
If you had the power to realign the SEC, Big 12, Pac 12, and Big 10 so they will all be 16 team superconferences, what would be the teams you choose for each conference? Keep in mind that geography of the schools is not a factor, you can add any school with a football program to each conference, and you can kick out existing members as long as the total is 16 teams per conference.
So we're killing off the ACC and Big East entirely, yes? I like that idea. The first thing I would do is put Notre Dame in the SEC, so that they would go 4-8 every year for the rest of time. That would make me happy. Also, I'd put Harvard in the Big Ten, strictly to watch them get their ass kicked on a yearly basis. I hate the idea of the Big 12 sticking around, because Texas nearly blew it apart a while back and then pulled a huge cocktease by keeping it all together. It would have been a blast to see the Big 12 fail. For some reason, conference realignment excites me, often more than watching an actual Big Ten football game. I'm gonna do away with the Big 12 entirely, because we don't need it. Let's see if we can create the perfect FBS landscape using three conferences:
Michigan St.
Penn St.
Ohio St.
Boston College
University of Chicago (founding conference member!)
Oklahoma St.
Kansas St.
I got rid of the Indiana schools because fuck the Indiana schools.
Oregon St.
Texas A&M
Boise St.
Arizona St.
We don't need two Arizona schools. They're barely schools.
Florida St.
Virginia Tech
Georgia Tech
South Carolina
North Carolina
Ole Miss
Notre Dame
And there you have it. Apologies to Maryland, Kentucky, Duke, Mississippi State, Virginia, NC St., Missou, Texas Tech, Syracuse and every other major school that I omitted. Just kidding about Mississippi State. Pretty sure that place is just a chicken shed.
Professional sports love having a few games per year where the teams wear retro jerseys to appeal to the crotchety old men and to sell more merchandise. I think each of the four pro sports needs to take it a step further once or twice a season. The NBA would have a Lakers-Celtics game with every player in Converse All-Stars and super short shorts. And take out the three point line and shot clock for the game. The NHL should have guys in no helmets, smaller pads, and goalies in the crazy old Jason masks. All wood sticks, too. To appease the Boston fans, baseball could go extra retro and ban minorities for the novelty game. This idea could go to golf as well. Mostly, I just want to see LeBron play in Chuck Taylors.
I would also like to see that, but the NBA would never allow such a thing because if LeBron played in Chucks, he would suddenly morph into an average player and we'd finally realize that it was Nike shoes propping him up THIS WHOLE TIME. That's totally what would happen. I'd love to see an NFL game where forward passes were illegal, and then I'd love to change the channel from that game after five minutes because I would know that it would inevitably end in a 3-3 tie.
For golf, you could go to wood clubs. Ditto wood rackets in tennis. For baseball, you could ban the DH from the AL for a day and outlaw relief pitching . For the Tour de France, everyone would have to ride an old Huffy. And for boxing, BARE KNUCKLES. In fact, I'd be all for making these rules standard across all sports on a regular basis. I see no possible downside to it.
This pic is from the Singapore airport men's room (I was there last week). On your way out of the can, you get to rate your bathroom experience. Presumably, they hold poor Yeo Khe Yoong personally accountable and, this being Singapore, cane his ass if he doesn't get all happy fun time excellent faces.
And by the way, the bathroom was immaculate.
HOLY SHIT! That's amazing. You'd have to be a real heartless fucker to hit the frowny face.
We lived in Indianapolis at the time and went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant one night. I was apparently a very well behaved baby, so screaming and crying was out of the ordinary. Well I screamed and cried throughout the entire dinner. The parents couldn't figure it out - I wasn't hungry or sick, no smells coming from the diaper, etc.
After dinner they finally decided to check my diaper more thoroughly and found the cause of my screaming. A cockroach. In my fucking diaper.
No. NONONONONONONONO. I'm never opening a diaper again.
By the way, I have an infant and I oddly look forward to seeing what kind of shit he's produced whenever he's taken a shit. For some reason, small turds disappoint me. I'm always hoping for a gigantic load of chunky peanut butter. And no cockroaches.
Email of the week!
About 15 years ago, I worked for a pretty well-known architecture firm in the Northeast US. (They are still around, albeit in a different configuration, so I won't name them.)
I was basically an office/clerical/IT drone, doing whatever the three partners and 25 or so architects needed on any given day. It was a weird group of people. I used to describe it to friends by comparing it to the law office on "Ally McBeal." Although we didn't have co-ed bathrooms with remote control flushes, the personalities were just about as fucked up.
So on one sunny spring day, I get to work and the atmosphere is noticeably tense. People whispering to each other, etc., etc. A police officer shows up, talks to one of the partners for a while, then leaves. Rumblings around the office are that the cop was asking about one of our employees, and phrases like "he molested a child" are being thrown around.
A few minutes later, that partner (the biggest jackass of the three), storms over to my desk and says "Where is 'John Smith'"? (Obviously not his real name.)
I tell the boss that John is downstairs, in our auxiliary space on the second floor. He asks me to call down there, which I do, and let him know that the boss wants to see him.
"OK," John responds cheerily, not at all sounding like a child molester. "Be right up."
Five minutes pass, no John Smith. The boss storms back over to my desk, and through clenched teeth, tells me, "Go down there, and get Smith. NOW."
I follow orders and bring John back upstairs to the main office, the most awkward elevator ride of my life. He immediately goes behind closed doors with the boss.
Ten minutes later, the entire office is called into the conference room. The boss announces that John has something to tell all of us.
"OK, well, I was working late last night, and no one else was here, and I went out on the fire escape, and I um….engaged in some auto-erotic activity."
The rest of us all look at each other in shocked silence, and we realize that he's talking about wanking his dick on a 5th-floor fire escape, open to the world, in a major metropolitan area. The story continues that he was simply wanting to fap in peace, but a woman in an apartment across the way happened to see him, and so he bolted and went home. The woman, who had a young child in her apartment (it was never clear whether or not the kid saw anything) called the cops, which prompted their visit the next day.
"John" got to keep his job, after a severe reprimand; I don't know if the cops got him for indecent exposure or anything like that. To this day, however, I cannot hear anything about architects or architecture without remembering the phrase "auto-erotic activity."


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|Biosequences .. Software .. Molbio soft .. Network News .. FTP
For those of you who have already seen this, my apologies. This is now the fourth time I have tried to post this message. There have been some server problems and my first three postings seem to have gotten lost in US cyberspace. Chris Town ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------ To Auxin-Lovers Everywhere Re: Workshop at 6th International Arabidopsis Meeting I am wondering if there is sufficient interest for those of us working on IAA biosynthesis and metabolism, IAA conjugate metabolism etc to get together and discuss both methods and results. We are looking at in planta metabolism of both IAA and its conjugates and are still in the methods development phase. I think there are lots of ways we all might profit from each others' experience in a workshop format. If interested please reply either direct to me (cdt2 at po.cwru.edu) or through the network. If more than two or three can be gathered togerther..., we'll do it. See you in Dairyland. Chris Town


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WORKSHOP: The Challenge of Developing Technical Talent
As leaders of technical staff, our ability to leverage the technical skills of our team and meet increasingly demanding business mandates is crucial. Often this is challenging because it requires us to take command of developing the skills of our team members that do not necessarily come naturally to them. For technical employees, their technical skill sets are critical to their success. Yet, the ability to work well with others and to communicate complex ideas effectively are just as critical in today's team environments.
In this workshop you'll discover what the 5 Drivers for Success are for career success in any function, and how they can provide a framework for career development conversations. We will benchmark the traits of successful technical employees and you'll have an opportunity to evaluate your current team against it. We will explore principles to help you coach your team members and have the chance to discuss development strategies with other tech leaders.
Development is no longer an optional perk or reserved for only certain positions. It's expected of today's talent. As Managers, Directors, and VP's of technical staff, our responsibility is to ensure our team members are given the coaching and direction to grow their skills, resulting in them becoming more valuable to the organization. Retention of key staff is influenced by the training and development opportunities they receive, as 7 out of 10 people say it is a factor in their decision to stay with a company.
You'll receive practical tools to help you analyze your team's soft skills capabilities and develop your talented technology employees to the next level. You will be equipped with time tested principles that will help you have even more productive development conversations with team members. You will have the opportunity to collaborate with other leaders of technical staff and learn about their best practices.


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I SWEAR that it is NOT necessary for you to whip out your iPhone and show me pictures of blood and mucus streaming down your face. Or to show me the tail of the gauze sponge that is still lodged up there.
Thank you for your consideration.
Ibee Grumpy, M.D.


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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Wordless Wednesday - 13 January 2010
With 4th cousin, George Koppers, following a presentation I gave in Decatur, Michigan this past September about our mutual ancestors (we share g-g-g-grandparents, Peter C. Wilcox & Mary Youker). George is a blessing in my life & we love going to cemeteries together!
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Q: I am a happily married man in my mid-40s with three young children. During my career, I have built a successful business and accumulated enough wealth so that I have no worries about money. My problem is that I really don't know what motivates me anymore.
I have read articles on job motivation, but none of the traditional types of motivators — like achievement, social interaction, or service to others — seems to apply to me. The only thing I really care about is making my wife happy and providing love, support and economic certainty for my family.
I greatly enjoy sports and other typical male activities, but I find it difficult to get excited about work. Can you help me figure out what I'm missing?
A: Actually, your situation is not uncommon. Based on your description, you seem to fall into the category of people who work primarily to support the rest of their life. This simply means that your job, while not terribly exciting, enables you to fund other enjoyable pastimes, like sports and family activities.
In reality, people vary quite a bit in enthusiasm for their chosen profession. A few have discovered a meaningful vocation which triggers a deep, lifelong passion, while many others are perfectly satisfied with work that is reasonably enjoyable, but not particularly energizing or inspirational.
To gauge the severity of this problem, you need to assess your own feelings about work. If you are fairly content with your job, then there's nothing wrong with being more excited about other activities. But if you dread going to the office or find yourself bored to tears while you're there, it may be time to start looking for a new and more interesting occupational challenge.
Q: You recently printed a question from an attorney who was concerned that her desire to start a family might cost her the chance to make partner. Your advice to look for a firm with better work-life balance was fine, but there's another option which you failed to mention. The woman could consider asking her husband if he would like to become a stay-at-home dad.
As president of DaddysHome, the national network for stay-at-home fathers, I have found that many of our members are married to attorneys. These men elected to step out of the workforce so that their wives could succeed and thrive in their careers.
This lifestyle choice has worked extremely well for our family and thousands of others. If your readers would like more information, they can visit our website at
. Al Watts, President, DaddysHome, Inc.
Latest Lifestyles
A: Thank you for sharing a very valuable perspective. To make the best possible choice for themselves and their children, parents should consider all realistic options for balancing family needs and work priorities. When both parties are comfortable with the decision, reversing the traditional roles can be a practical and rewarding alternative.
(Marie G. McIntyre is a workplace coach and the author of "Secrets to Winning at Office Politics." Send in questions and get free coaching tips at http://www.yourofficecoach.com, or follow her on Twitter @officecoach.)
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